I've stopped reading
A Song of Ice and Fire. I read the first book before I watched the first season of
Game of Thrones, and then the second before the second, but by the time the credits rolled on "Valar Morghulis," I realized something: I was ruining what was likely one of the best TV shows of all time by reading some pretty average books. That's going to piss some people off, but I think the precedents are pretty easy to set.
Game of Thrones falls into a lineage of shows that have been gradually pressing at the boundaries of what we think television is capable of. Call
The Sopranos the beginning of this, and then include
The Wire and
Breaking Bad and a few others along the way. And yes: This pushing often involves unspeakable violence and gratuitous sex, but to me that's not what genuinely ties these shows together.
I'm certainly not the first to point out that these shows are doing the kind of work on the human character that used to be the province solely of the novel. And with the conclusion of its third season, I think it's now possible to say that
Game of Thrones is doing that work better than any show that's come before it.
With greater direction (which is, I admit, a byproduct of basing it on a series of novels) than
The Wire or
Breaking Bad,
Game of Thrones is showing us how plotlines create character, not just reflect it. Events in
Game of Thrones are like living things that die and leave their bones inside of characters, slowly fossilizing and then being ground into the shale and coal and oil that become a character's fuel. Although it doesn’t do everything exactly right, it does this thing better than any other show I’ve ever watched.
This is quietly revolutionary for television, but it's what has been at the heart of good fiction for generations. And weirdly, it's not done all that well in Martin's books. Structurally, they're bold in their departure from the conventions of fantasy literature with regard to goodness and honesty winning out in the end, but go talk to Cormac McCarthy about that shit.
And that's the basic calculus for me here. The very best that fiction has to offer — both from classic authors like Dostoevsky and Hemingway and current authors like McCarthy, Zadie Smith, Don DeLillo, and even genre writers like Richard Price — is just much, much better than what George R.R. Martin can give you. And yet
Game of Thrones appears to be well on its way to being one of the top 10, if not top five, TV dramas ever.
Why would I want to wade around in the shallow end and thumb my nose at the people diving off the high board? Up until Season 3, I was always busy marking off similarities to the books, but now I'm free to be shocked and moved without precondition.
But you've read all the books. You can't unread them. What's your perspective on this?
Re: [HBO] Game of Thrones (Stagione 3)
Rispondi Citando
Poi il citare dei classici della letteratura per sminuire Martin è veramente infantile, si potrebbe rispondergli che la qualità media degli sceneggiati tv usciti in GB ed anche in Italia negli '70 è anni luce superiore a questo GoT ma vabbè... 
Originariamente Scritto da Traiano
Per un lettore vedere le stagioni tv di GoT è proprio come vedere un film sulla WWII, ma appunto, posso tranquillamente vedere un film od una serie di cui conosco bene lo sviluppo e perfino il finale se questo film e questa serie sono fatti bene. Quindi la mia curiosità da lettore sulla trasposizione è proprio sulla trasposizione, non ho personalmente bisogno che gli sceneggiatori apportino dei cambiamenti alla trama per aumentare il mio interesse, anzi in linea di massima quest'ultima cosa tende a darmi fastidio, pur sapendo che in alcuni casi sia inevitabile.
) provo rosicamento e versamenti di bile e...basta! le soddisfazioni non impegnano le dita di una mano (forse l'unica volta in cui ho davvero goduto duro è stato il face to face di jamie col lupo di Robb 
, capisco che non si possono bruciare certe tappe (posto che mai lo si farà) ma questo è praticamente un monologo in crescendo dei bastardi dentro 
